Unprecedented Actions

This page tracks unprecedented or highly unusual actions taken by Trump as president (or president-elect) or his administration, or unprecedented results or responses to administration actions.

Timeline

2017.11.19

The top U.S. nuclear commander said on Saturday that he would resist President Donald Trump if he ordered an "illegal" launch of nuclear weapons.nytimes.com(See also Department of Defense)

2017.11.20

At dinner at a lobbying hotspot with a powerful tech CEO, the national security adviser said the president has the intelligence of a “kindergartner,” according to sources.buzzfeed.com(See also H.R. McMaster)

2017.11.23

NY Attorney General Schneiderman estimated that hundreds of thousands of Americans’ identities were stolen and used in spam campaigns that support repealing net neutrality, while a new analysis reveals that at least 1.3 million comments supporting the new FCC position on net neutrality were fake.hackernoon.com(See also Legal Issues, Assaults on Civil Liberties, Net Neutrality)

Donald Trump named his budget director as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's acting leader (an agency he vowed to destroy), despite the fact that he's still the budget director and after its departing leader had taken steps to install his own choice for acting chief.nytimes.com(See also Assaults on Government)

Jared Kushner failed to disclose his role as a co-director of the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation from 2006 to 2015, a time when the group funded an Israeli settlement considered to be illegal under international law, on financial records he filed with the Office of Government Ethics earlier this year.newsweek.com(See also Jared Kushner, Israel, False Statements)

Yet another omission was discovered on Jared Kushner’s financial disclosure forms Friday, as news broke of his reported involvement in attempting to sway a U.N. Security Council vote before Donald Trump became president.

2017.12.04

Donald Trump endorsed a Senate candidate accused of child molestation, as nine women have accused Judge Roy Moore of sexual harassment, including some who were teenagers at the time the misconduct took place.buzzfeed.com(See also Unpresidential Behavior)

2017.12.04

The Trump Administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince (Betsy DeVos' brother) and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, as a means of countering “deep state” enemies.theintercept.com(See also Mike Pompeo, Assaults on Civil Liberties)

The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration's political agenda.

2017.12.05

Defying every major ally besides Israel, Donald Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as its capital, breaking a longstanding international consensus to refrain from doing this until Israel brokers a peace agreement with the Palestinians.buzzfeed.com(See also Israel, Foreign Policy)

2017.12.05

Donald Trump plans to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the American Embassy there, upending nearly seven decades of American foreign policy and potentially destroying his efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians.nytimes.com(See also Israel, Jared Kushner, Muslims)

2017.12.05

Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission, after this summer's sweeping request to state officials to submit voter data, plans to create a massive voter database, which could be manipulated, leading the administration to wrongfully purge legitimate voters.washingtonpost.com(See also Fascism, Voter Suppression, Voter Fraud)

2017.12.06

House Democrats overwhelmingly joined Republicans on Wednesday to defeat an attempt to impeach Donald Trump, but 58 Democrats supported the bid to consider impeachment over the objections of House Democratic leaders, who viewed the measure as a distraction in a Republican-controlled Congress.politico.com(See also Racism, Anti-Semitism)

Nearly one year after his inauguration, Donald Trump’s approval rating sits at 35 percent, a historic low for a commander in chief in the December of his first year in office.politico.com(See also Trump Effect)

2017.12.20

Republicans are on the verge of passing the most significant overhaul of the tax code since 1986, after the Senate passed the GOP plan, cutting the corporate tax rate dramatically providing new breaks for businesses, lowering income tax bills in 2018 for the vast majority of households, though the wealthy would see far more relief than the middle class and working poor.washingtonpost.com(See also Economy, Trump Taxes, Affordable Care Act)

2017.12.28

The Trump White House saw a record number of first-year staff departures at 34%, which is unprecedented in the modern era, as the next highest first year turnover rate was 17% under Ronald Reagan in 1981.wsj.com(See also Resignations and Dismissals)

2018.01.06

Mr. Trump, seeming to respond to revelations in a new book, issued an extraordinary defense of his fitness for office, saying he's a "very stable genius."nytimes.com(See also Unpresidential Behavior)

2018.01.25

A case accusing Mr. Trump of violating the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, which prevent a president from accepting government-bestowed benefits either at home or abroad, appeared to inch forward during a lengthy hearing before a federal judge in Maryland.nytimes.com(See also Conflicts of Interest, Corruption, Legal Activity)

2018.01.29

Andrew G. McCabe abruptly stepped down on Monday as the F.B.I.’s deputy director after months of withering criticism from Donald Trump, telling friends he felt pressure from the head of the bureau to leave, adding to what has already been a chaotic upheaval at the F.B.I. under Mr. Trump, who has responded to an investigation into his campaign with broadside attacks against both the bureau and the Justice Department.nytimes.com(See also Unpresidential Behavior, Corruption, Department of Justice, Jeff Sessions)

2018.01.29

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, disregarding Justice Department warnings that their actions would be “extraordinarily reckless,” voted Monday evening to release a contentious secret memorandum said to accuse the department and the F.B.I. of misusing their authority to obtain a secret surveillance order on a former Trump campaign associate, throwing fuel on an already fiery partisan conflict over the investigations into Russia’s brazen meddling in the 2016 presidential election.nytimes.com(See also Nationalism, Trump Relationship with Russia, 2016 Campaign, Assaults on Facts)

2018.01.29

The Trump administration informed lawmakers that new Russia sanctions called for in a bipartisan bill passed last year are not necessary yet because the measure is already "serving as a deterrent," despite the fact that lawmakers in both parties nudged the administration to implement sanctions legislation that passed overwhelmingly in July — with only five no votes in both the House and Senate.politico.com(See also Russia, Trump Relationship with Russia, 2016 Campaign)

2018.02.06

After Hurricane Maria, FEMA awarded an Atlanta entrepreneur with no experience in large scale disaster relief $156 million to deliver 30 million means to Puerto Ricans, but only 50,000 were delivered and the contract was terminated.nytimes.com(See also Administration Errors, Corruption)

Tiffany Brown is the sole owner and employee of the company, Tribute Contracting LLC, who initially won the contract from FEMA.